Excerpt from the interview carried out in 2021 on the occasion of the Cycle des Veilleurs which took place at the house of the Jean-Moulin-Les Guilands departmental park, located between Montreuil and Bagnolet.
The cycle of the Watchers has begun the December 15. What is it about?
Les Veilleurs is a performance, a choreography open to a large number of people where I ask each person to sit in a high shelter to watch, at sunrise or sunset for an hour. I ask to stand, to maintain a presence, to imprint the body in the city.
The performance is punctuated by sunrise and sunset. What is the role of the sun in your project?
The sun is our clock. He’s the one who’s going to time us. With the rising and setting of the sun, we return to something essential in fact. The light. Activity in the city. It’s fundamental. But we don’t always see it in our modern lives, in our homes, in our routines. This project will seek to give time, to slow down, to take time for oneself and for others.
How was your project born? What was your first idea?
I have always been fascinated by going to a high position in a city or natural landscape. Climbing, we all do it in humanity. This is where we take a little step back, from a height, we look. The seed is this moment of silence when we know we have arrived. We are on the top of the mountain, the roof of the building, high up. We stop. And it’s this moment of silence. As Beckett says, this is the moment when the conductor will raise his baton before the orchestra plays. What happens during this time? I have the desire to install poetry in the city, to disseminate art in the city to change our experience, our landscape.
You are a choreographer. When you ask watchmen to stand still, is that still dancing?
I will not speak of immobility because there is never any immobility in fact. If we’re there, we’re there. There is John Cage, the American composer, who will tell us that there is no silence, that there is always noise. That’s where I’m at with dancing. The body is alive. The heart beats, thoughts will come and go. Standing for an hour is not passive, it is active. I wanted to create a work that would allow everyone to take their place on a city scale. Les Veilleurs commemorates – as a statue would do in the city – the fact that each citizen, each person is really very important, unique. And that we are connected. We form this community. Individual participation for collective monitoring. This idea of repetition and gathering are the bases of my choreographic work.
“Les Veilleurs” is a performance that has traveled a lot….
In fact, it started in 2011 in Belfort. We have been pursuing this project for ten years. In Rennes, Laval, Haguenau, Évreux, Friborg in Germany, Dordrecht in the Netherlands and Graz in Austria. She is currently playing in Munich, Germany and Hale in England. Always with the same modalities: 730 people and always over one year.
Was the channel never interrupted?
No. Even during the confinements which saw many shows cancelled, Les Veilleurs was not interrupted.
What are you trying to do with this work?
For me, this piece is also a great ritual. Twice every day, there is a meeting with the guide. It’s very human. The attendant will welcome the watchman, install him, and time the passing hour. “Les Veilleurs” is about opening up to others. It’s the moments of gathering that interest me. How can we create an experience together around an artistic project? We participate individually to work together, to dance together.
At each sunrise, at each sunset, a new Watcher arrives. Will they all meet at some point?
Of course. At the end, there will be a big closing party where we will celebrate the passing of 365 days and celebrate the channel that we individually created together. Celebrate our challenge of not having a day without a watchman.
And you, how are you going to stay in contact with all the Watchers?
To prepare for each watch, participants are invited to a workshop which takes place every two weeks. And every quarter, for the watchmen we organize meetings, date nights where my dancers are there. We read the texts of the watchmen and look at the photos that have accumulated throughout the year. It is important for me to create moments of reflection on the presence of watchmen and to talk about it together.
What are the motivations of the Watchers?
The reasons why the watchman will participate are personal. It’s really unique to each person. Everyone chooses their date and time: a specific moment. There are those who want to celebrate a birthday, a wedding, the birth of a child, the loss of someone. It could be someone who has just arrived in town and who wants to be part of an artistic project intimately connected to the city. A dad who stays up in the morning and his son in the evening. It could be a couple: the wife in the morning and her husband in the evening. This performance is also there to raise the personal history of the city, of the territory. It is also a place of words for citizens. In this, he is very democratic, very accessible.
How is this silent performance a place of words for citizens?
The project includes a collection of traces: photos, texts. We will ask the watchman to write a few lines after the day before to share with us his experience, his feelings, of having watched over the city, over the territory. And we will ask the guide to take a portrait of the watchman and a photo of the landscape to see the passage of the seasons. These traces, photos, thoughts will accumulate on the website dedicated to the watchers project: www.wldn.fr
Photo credits: Sylvain Hitau
